Last Blog On The Left

I always enjoy a good summer-movie-action-extravaganza. Don´t we all? That´s why I dragged my scarred, old body to the theatre the other today so I could catch this summer´s first action blockbuster, “The A-Team”. I didn´t have my hopes set too high but I was expecting a little more than the usual Michael Bay-crap, since it´s Joe Carnahan that was sitting in the director chair on this one. Carnahan was responsible for the fairly enjoyable “Smokin´ Aces” and the fantastic “Narc”, so chances was that this one was actually gonna be pretty good. Other than that, you also got Liam Neeson in the role of Hannibal Smith, Sharlto Copley (the guy from “District 9”) as Murdoch and Bradley Cooper as Face. These three guys´ performances are pretty decent. But the first mistake of “The A-Team” is that they instead of just hiring Mr. T again, is that they brought in this guy, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, to play B.A. Baracus. I wasn´t familiar with this guy but apparently he´s some sort of mixed martial artist or whatever. I have no idea what “mixed” means. Maybe he´s feeling a bit confused about his choice to compete in martial arts? Is his emotional life in upheaval? Honestly, I have no idea.

But anyway, this guy is no actor, I think we can all agree on that and even though a guy like Liam Neeson isn´t exactly stretching his acting muscles in a movie like this, it´s pretty apparent that he belongs in a different league. But maybe it´s wrong of me to complain about a thing like this ´cuz after all, this is “The A-Team”, not Shakespeare, right? But you know, it wasn´t that long ago that I saw one of those infomercials that Mr. T has done where he´s selling his own grill or whatever the hell it is and the weird thing is that the guy looks exactly like he did 20 years ago! Apparently Mr. T forgot to age during the years he´s been away from the limelight. “I pity the fool who grows old!” They could´ve easily gotten away with giving him the role.

But even if you disregard the fact that Mr. T wasn´t cast in the movie, is it any good? Not really. It is kind of fun but this is a good example of the usual overkill that goes on in today´s action movies. Hell, at one point Neeson´s character even says “Overkill is underrated” but you know what, usually I´m not of the habit of disagreeing with Liam Neeson (not after watching “Taken” and realizing that the guy kicks ass like it´s nobody´s business) but I think I have to, in this case.  “The A-Team” is a bit too much of everything.

The story goes like this: The A-Team, an elite combat unit, is framed for a crime they didn´t commit. This means that they have to clear their names and in order to do this, they have to blow a lot of shit up. That´s all you need to know, really.

Let´s start off with the good things: Sharlto Copley! This guy has got the chops. I think we can agree that he delivered on of last year´s best performances in “District 9” and even though he´s not gonna get any Oscar nominations for his turn as Murdoch, he still manages to nail that insane quality that Dwight Schultz had in the original TV-series.

I guess that Liam Neeson is one of the other things that´s pretty good about this flick. I like the direction this guy´s career has taken in the last couple of years. It started when he made that western with Pierce Brosnan, “Seraphim Falls” and then in his quest to become one of baddest of asses in Hollywood he made the fantastic “Taken” and now this. I could watch a new action movie with him every week. Keep ´em coming, Liam!

But this is by now way a great movie. Unfortunately, halfway through the film director Joe Carnahan seemed to have come up with the not-so-fantastic idea that what he really wanted to make was a Jason Bourne movie, so suddenly we find ourselves in Germany at a train station with lots of surveillance cameras and shit. Very much Jason Bourne, if you get my drift.

I have to say that I had some problem keeping my interest alive throughout its running time. This is partly due to the fact that Carnahan tries to create the most spectacular action sequences, and in order to do that he resorts to the old CGI-way of movie trickery. Not my favorite way of creating an action sequence, but I don´t wanna sound like an old cranky man, so let´s skip that for now. Unfortunately, Carnahan hasn´t calmed down with his insane shaky-camera movements. If you saw his previous flick, “Smokin´ Aces” you know what I´m talking about here. He used the same technique to fantastic effect in the opening scene of “Narc” when Jason Patric is chasing a drug dealer down an alley but in that film it served a purpose. In that one, Carnahan placed us smack in the middle of a foot chase and we were supposed to wonder what the hell was going on. That´s a whole different thing. It´s never a good thing when you start to wonder what´s going on or who´s firing at who. Unfortunately, that´s exactly what happens here.

I know I said I wasn´t gonna go off on another one of these rants but I can´t control myself: honestly, what is it with today´s action directors and CGI? I´m not saying that you should actually put Liam Neeson in a tank and then throw it out of an airplane but honestly, CGI really has killed the action star! Why don´t everyone take a cue from Christopher Nolan and what he achieved with “The Dark Knight”? He managed to create some truly unforgettable action sequences there. Remember that tank flipping over in the middle of the street? You can bet your computer generated ass that that wasn´t CGI.

I also found myself wondering why the hell this movie was called “The A-Team” in the first place because frankly, it doesn´t have much to do with the original TV-series. They could´ve easily just changed the names of the characters and I don´t think that anyone would´ve suspected much of anything. Which begs the question: why the hell do you wanna remake something if you´re gonna change it so much that doesn´t resemble the original in the first place? I can appreciate the fact that Carnahan wanted to make a grittier movie but he still has to work within the realms that the PG-13 rating creates. This basically means that no matter how cool and brutal Carnahan wanted Hannibal and his team to be, they´re never gonna come close to the mayhem he unleashed in “Smokin´ Aces”. So once again: why even bother calling it “The A-Team” at all? Beats me.

But what the hell, all in all this is a pretty enjoyable, stupid action flick and I guess you could do a lot worse this summer. At least Carnahan knows what he´s doing but unfortunately, since we´re all waiting for the wonder that will be “The Expendables” I´m afraid it´s hard to get too excited about this one.

Until next time: take scare!

Thomas

This entry was posted on Monday, June 21st, 2010 at 8:42 pm and is filed under Action, Film. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.